A small twin-engine plane dropped out of the sky and exploded in flames on a busy freeway near a Southern California airport Friday morning, injuring the two people aboard but clipping only one passing vehicle, a fire official said.

The Cessna 310 aircraft crashed on Interstate 405, just short of a runway at John Wayne Airport in Costa Mesa around 9:30 a.m., said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

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The pilot declared an emergency shortly after taking off from the airport and was trying to return when the crash occurred, Gregor said.

The two people who were aboard the plane, a man and a woman in their 50s and 60, were alive when they were pulled from the fiery wreckage and were taken to a hospital with traumatic injuries, Orange County Fire Capt. Larry Kurtz said.

The plane clipped a blue pickup truck as it crashed on the freeway, but the driver suffered only a bruised elbow, Kurtz said.

"The fact that a plane was able to land and only strike a single vehicle is extraordinary," Kurtz said.

Video posted on social media showed the plane engulfed in flames and plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky. Traffic was backed up for miles on the major route between Los Angeles and San Diego as fire crews worked to extinguish the blaze.

"The plane collided, spun across the freeway and burst into flames," Kurtz said. The wreckage saw strewn across several lanes of the freeway, he said.

The pickup truck's driver, Blackstone Hamilton, told KCBS-TV he initially though a large truck had slammed into the back of his car and then saw flames quickly surrounding his vehicle. He checked to make sure his passenger was safe before pulling over on the side of the freeway.

"We have each other a hug that we were still alive," Hamilton told the television station.

Tina Foster had just left nearby John Wayne Airport when she heard a loud boom, which she initially thought was a car crash.

"By the time I got up to it the only thing I saw was the flames," she said.

Foster posted a photo of smoke pouring out from behind the airport on Facebook to calm her friends' fears after receiving texts asking if she were still alive, she said.

Another driver, Brian Gladish, said he was driving down the freeway when he saw a large cloud of smoke and flames.

"There was debris everywhere, the freeway was still on fire," he said.